Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has long been recognized, and it is today considered to be a serious worldwide health problem. As a result of resistance, some bacterial infections are either difficult to treat with antibiotics or even untreatable. This problem has become especially serious with the recent development of multiple drug resistance in certain strains of bacteria, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP), staphylococcus aureus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Enterococcus. As bacterial resistance to antibiotics has become an important public health problem, there is a continuing need to develop newer and more potent antibiotics. More particularly, there is a need for antibiotics that represent a new class of compounds not previously used to treat bacterial infection.
1-ethyl-3-(5-(5-fluoropyridin-3-yl)-7-(pyrimidin-2-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)urea (Compound 1) having the structure below:
has demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of bacterial infections, including those resistant to one or more existing antibiotics. Compound 1 is described in US2005/0038247, published Feb. 15, 2005, US2006/0122196 published Jun. 8, 2006, and WO2006/022773 published Mar. 2, 2006, each of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.